2019: Macau’s warmest year in 67 years

2019 was the warmest year the city has recorded, since records began in 1952. According to recent data released by the Statistics and Census Service, the annual mean air temperature in the city last year rose by 0.8 degrees Celsius year-on-year to 23.6 degrees.
The highest temperature of the year was 35.7 degrees, recorded in July and August, down by 0.1 degrees compared to the highest temperature in 2018. However, the lowest temperature was recorded at 8.4 degrees in January, up by 3.8 degrees from a year earlier.
According to reports, the earth’s average global surface temperature in 2019 was the second warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880.
Independent analysts at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration note that the average temperature in 2019 was second only to that of 2016, and the planet’s long-term warming trend is continuing.
“The past five years have been the warmest of the last 140 years,” the agencies stated.
Last year, Macau had a total of five tropical cyclones, yet only was sufficiently strong to warrant the issuing of a Signal No. 8 warning.
The tropical cyclone warning was hoisted when tropical storm Wipha hit the city with a maximum wind speed of 100.1 km per hour and a maximum 10-minute average wind speed of 67.3 km per hour.
It was during this time the government committed to expending the utmost effort to keep the public and their property safe, prioritizing the maintenance of a stable supply of water, electricity and telecommunication services.
Civil protection infrastructure faced an overhaul after Typhoon Hato struck in August 2017, killing 10 people and revealing just how unprepared the entire city was for a natural disaster of that magnitude.
This year, the Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau expects four to six strong tropical cyclones will affect the Macau territory, all passing within an 800-kilometer range of Macau.
The first tropical cyclone to affect Macau may hit the city sometime in June, while the typhoon season is expected to last until October.
Meanwhile, regarding air quality, the number of “poor” air quality days recorded in 2019 by each monitoring station in Macau surpassed the 2018 figure. The roadside monitoring station at Ká Hó and the ambient monitoring station in Taipa both registered 41 days of “poor” air quality, with year-on-year increases of 29 days and 12 days respectively. LV